On April 17th, myself and five other grade 10 girls from my school were picked to see Colonel Chris Hadfield at Hard Rock Theatre, Coquitlam, where we attended an event called “Create Your Future” organized by the BCIT School of Transportation. I honestly don’t know why we were chosen, but we were a lucky bunch, and seeing Chris Hadfield in person was definitely a spectacular experience.

At the event, we were presented with possible careers to choose from for our future, and it was interesting learning about the many transportation trades and technology occupations one could do in Canada.

One piece of advice I gained from that day was from the Colonel himself, where he described his journey to become the first Canadian man in space:

“Visualize failure and learn how you will react to it is how you can become successful. Take small steps each day to achieve your goals, and what you are tomorrow is a result of what you do today.” – Chris Hadfield

Prior to meeting the Colonel, I always thought being an astronaut was an easy job, where as long as you are healthy, you could get blasted into space. I was so wrong. He explained how he started thinking about his future career just about our age, and he really wanted to be an astronaut. So, with his ambitious hopes and dreams, he took steps that he thought would help him reach his ultimate goal, joined air cadets and learned to become a pilot. This came with more than sweat and hard work. When he told us that he was chosen as to be one of four new Canadian astronauts from a pool of 5330 candidates in June 1992, to attain this level of success, I was not surprised after hearing about how well rounded he is. I was truly amazed at his determination, and at the same time, I felt that my mind is a bit clearer about what I want to do for a living in the future, and I wish I can make positive contributions to the society for the next generations’ well-being.

Signing off for now and thank you,

Good night or perhaps good day, depending on when you read this.

Captain Ariel Jingjing Cao – Miss Teenage Burnaby 2014

~ muah <3 ~ 😆

P.S. I am starting to use my Instagram and you can find me @arielcowmoo.

P.P.S. You can go check out Chris Hadfield’s famous music video: Space Oddity.

Hi! I'm Carol, Miss Teenage Burnaby 2018!

Carol is a courageous, determined and hard-working individual with strong leadership skills, who made distinction honours in 2017. She also has the ability to work under pressure and pick up the slack that none of her group members are willing to do. She is a competitive swimmer in BMM and won 8th in 100m butterfly during the Simon Fraser regionals and achieved 15+ personal best times in the summer of 2017. She is a history enthusiast especially in the culture of Ancient China. She can recite the Ballad of Mulan fluently in Chinese.